Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
GIOVANNI
I’m still shoveling food onto my plate at the dinner table when my nonna says, “You eat like a bird, Giovanni. How are you going to survive if you eat like this? Here, take more bread.”
She plops what looks like half a loaf of bread onto my plate.
I catch Bianca’s eye, hoping she’ll smile, but she gives me a flat, unimpressed glower.
The black she always wears makes her eyes look a richer brown.
They’re dark but luminous, fringed with lashes as dark black as her outfit and wet hair.
Her lips are pressed into a thin, pink line that can’t hide their plumpness.
She’s a knockout, and no more into me now than she was all those years ago.
In fact, she looked at me pretty much this same way when Miles dared her to kiss me when she was thirteen—and then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine with as much enthusiasm as if I were a frog. Because Bianca Murphy wasn’t the kind of girl who’d pass up a dare—or enjoy it.
I’ve always enjoyed dares. In fact, I’ve been told I enjoy them too much, by people who know what they’re talking about. And it would seem they have a point, given that my weakness for dares is one of the reasons why I’m in this mess.
Bianca is still giving me a dirty look as I resume my seat. Watching me as if she wishes I’d blink out of existence.
It’s kind of nice to be looked at that way after the past couple of weeks of being ogled by passersby. Not to mention the people who’ve been lining up around the block to get into Hidden Italy so they can get a glimpse at me. So maybe that’s why I’m tempted to keep riling her.
I pick up the bread and chomp into it, lifting my eyebrows at her in a taunt.
“Should we say grace?” Bianca asks pointedly, glancing at our nonnas.
I grin as I swallow the hunk of garlic bread. “Grace.”
I’m not surprised when my nonna gives me a testicle-withering glare. “Sei pazzo. What’s the matter with you? You apologize to Nonna Rose. Mother of God. I never thought I’d see the day…”
I apologize, chastened, because Bianca was right about one thing: it’s my fault we’re here.
My grandmother declared last winter that she was nearing the end of her life and wanted to right all of her wrongs.
Hurling the first apple in her infamous fight with Nonna Rose was one of them.
But we came to Apple Ridge because of my wrongs, which, according to my grandmother, would fill the devil’s book.
Just a few weeks, my brother Nico told me. Go there for a few weeks, and everyone will forget what happened by the time you come home. It’ll blow over.
He’s wrong, of course. I turned on my cell phone before I went upstairs to look for Bianca, and there were dozens of voicemails and messages on it.
People are looking for me. They want to know where I’ve gone so they can follow me again. Ask me questions. Take my photo. Ask me what happens next in my story.
My heart races at the thought, so I shove it down and take a mouthful of food. It’s hot and good, the taste of my nonna’s sauce so familiar I feel my nervous system settling.
I remind myself that no one will be looking for my alter ego here. Apple Ridge is even sleepier than my hometown, and so full of elderly people, Bianca and the other medical professionals in town are guaranteed job security.
Which makes it an ideal hiding place.
True, our family is connected to the Murphys, but very few people know that. It’s been so many years. There’s so much water under that particular bridge.
While I’ve kept up with Miles, Miles has barely kept up with his family.
The person he’s closest to is Bianca, mostly because she won’t let him fall off the face of the earth.
Which means he’s told me a few things about her over the years.
So I already know she had a broken engagement and that she works at a retirement home after leaving two better-paying nursing jobs.
I’m also aware that the farm isn’t doing well.
“So, Giovanni…” Nonna Rose says.
I set my fork down and smile at her. “Yes?”
“Your grandmother told me your ex-girlfriend just got married.”
I can feel Bianca staring at me with her big brown eyes.
Her lips are probably parted, her wet hair tucked primly behind her ears.
She’s growing out bangs but they keep tumbling into her face like they want to tickle her.
It’s strange that I’ve already memorized her adult appearance, but maybe it’s only because she’s the first girl I ever kissed.
She doesn’t know that. It’s not the kind of thing you tell a girl. But it’s true.
Bianca never liked me, and it’s not like I had a thing for her, but my heart did try to escape from my chest when she dipped her head toward me.
You remember your first kiss. Everyone does.
I still recall the way she tasted, like strawberry gum, and how soft her bottom lip felt. Enough that I’d wanted to test it with my teeth…
“Giovanni?” Nonna Rose prompts.
Right. She asked me about Janine.
“Yeah,” I say flatly. “I’m happy for her.”
Because you can’t tell a woman you’re expected to call “nonna” that your ex-girlfriend sucks.
Up until last year, I’d been enough of a dumbass to think Janine and I were it.
We’d dated all through high school, and after she moved back home, we picked up where we’d left off.
I figured we’d settle down, have a couple of kids, and I’d keep running the family business with Nico. It would be a good, solid life.
Sure, I used to imagine bigger and better things.
I’d dreamed of being an explorer. Acting in movies.
Opening a big restaurant. But after my grandfather died, I came to accept there’d be no big adventures for me.
I told myself they’d been pipe dreams, anyway, and I could always live vicariously through Miles’s adventures.
When Janine and I had been back together for about a month, I got a little drunk and told her about my settling-down plan, and she laughed. She told me we were just having a little fun, and fun was all I could deliver. Why, I could barely even keep a mom-and-pop shop running.
So when I found out Hidden Italy was in financial trouble because my grandmother had messed up the books, I decided I’d come up with a plan to save the day.
It was supposed to stay secret, but secrets have a way of getting out. Just about everyone at home now knows what I was up to, from my grandmother to my little sister to my second-grade teacher.
Which is why I’m hiding in a North Carolina farmhouse, like a damn coward.
I heave a sigh and rub my temples, suddenly feeling every single hour I spent behind the wheel of that Range Rover, a present Enzo bought for our grandmother.
Of course, we all know it was actually for me, since Nonna refuses to wear glasses and would be a menace to every man, woman, child, and squirrel in the continental United States.
Enzo isn’t happy with me right now either, a thought that makes me feel worse.
He’s my big brother, but he’s more than that. Our mother left us when we were kids—drove off one day and never came back—and my father’s solution was to isolate himself. So Enzo and my grandparents took on the job of raising the rest of us.
“Why you no eat?” my grandmother presses, reaching for my elbow as if she’s going to physically force the food into my mouth.
I’m not the slightest bit hungry anymore, but I shove in another couple of bites for her sake. “Delicious as always, Nonna.” I nod at Nonna Rose. “Nonna Rose, thank you for your hospitality and the bread.”
“I’m so pleased you’re here,” she says with a genuine smile. She looks like an older Bianca, although her hair has gone completely white.
Remembering what Bianca said about matchmaking, I decide to have a little fun. I smile at Bianca. “And I’m pleased to be here. Some of my best childhood memories were on this farm.”
“Is that why you came?” Bianca asks smartly. “Or do you have a sudden passion for North Carolinian pumpkins?”
She’s clearly fishing for information about Miles, who very distinctly asked me not to tell his family anything yet. Miles hates disappointing his family, a feeling I understand all too well.
“I do. I remember that fifty-pound one your great-uncle grew one year. Your brother sent me a picture. Actually, I figured maybe I’d write some poetry about farming life. Start a blog.”
She lifts one eyebrow. “Cute.”
“Do you like poetry, Bianca? Maybe I’ll write one about you.”
She looks like she wants to throw her garlic bread at me. I’d kind of enjoy it if she did.
“What a charming boy,” Nonna Rose says, reaching over to pat my hand. “Such a good grandson.”
My grandmother snorts but continues eating her spaghetti.
Wheels crunch on gravel outside of the old windows.
My back straightens. That’ll be Theo. Miles has already warned me that his brother won’t appreciate the intrusion.
Nonna Rose darts an accusatory look at Bianca, who lifts her hands. “I didn’t tell him. But you do have a strange car parked in front of the house. You know Theo. He likes to drive past the house to check on us.”
Sure enough, the front door creaks open. A few minutes later, Theo comes around the corner. He’s about my height now, with a short brown beard and messy hair. He’s wearing a flannel shirt, old jeans, and work boots. He has Bianca’s intense brown eyes.
He does a doubletake when he sees us sitting at the table, and his eyes linger on my grandmother.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Bianca says, reaching for the wine bottle on the tabletop.
She gets up and retrieves an empty glass from the old-fashioned china cabinet, the same piece of furniture my little sister banged her head on one of our early visits to the farm.
It’s wild how little this place has changed.
The only evidence that time has been moving along at Evergreens & Apples farm is in the wear and tear.
Bianca practically shoves a full glass of red wine into Theo’s hand, and he accepts it on reflex, then takes a sip.
“Do you remember the Cafieros?” Bianca asks.
“Of course.” He nods at my grandmother, then at me, his jaw clenching. “Giovanni, right?”
“Right.” I get to my feet and extend my hand to him. Theo gives it a shake, squeezing hard enough to communicate that the farm is his playground, and I’m standing on his sand.
“No, please don’t get up, Mrs. Cafiero,” he says, walking past me, his shoulder bumping into mine purposefully as he makes his way to my grandmother.
“I’m not dead yet,” she says morosely. “I can still move. And you will call me Nonna Francesca.” It’s not a request, and I smile at the flustered look on Theo’s face as she stands and gives him a stiff hug.
“Right. Nonna Francesca. So, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Wellll,” Bianca says, clearly enjoying herself more now that she has backup.
“Sounds like Nonna Rose went to see your ex-girlfriend for psychic guidance. Then, on Theresa’s recommendation, she invited Nonna Francesca and Giovanni to stay with us.
Giovanni’s going to take over our pumpkin patch, because the kids who worked there have been selling weeds, and Nonna Francesca’s going to help with all the fall baking. ”
Theo takes another long sip of wine before setting the glass down on the table.
“You talked to Theresa?” he asks his nonna.
She shrugs. “You told me I shouldn’t drive to Hendersonville or Asheville anymore. She’s the only psychic in town. She’s not so bad, though. She told me the Pink Lady Apples would be better this year.”
Theo studies her for a moment before turning back to me, his eyes searing me like coals. “You don’t fool me. I know why you’re really here.”
My pulse starts hammering, and a cold sweat forms at the back of my neck. “You do?”